I proudly defend Franco, who defeated the communists in Spain, and then declined to join the Axis in WW2.
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Agreed! Franco also modernized Spain's economy while preserving her morality. Arriba Espana! Viva Franco!
Justice will be served when Franco is recognized as the man who saved Spain from both "idealist" Trotskyites and Stalinists.
Sadly, the Spanish parliament tried to demolish remaining monuments to Franco. Don't know if they succeeded yet.
Franco was a Nationalist and not a fascist and did what he thought was best for Spain.
I'm with you, Rodney. Franco's heroism is all the more meaningful for the fact hat he sought no personal gain or glory from his fight with the communist bandits who had murdered both the Church and the State in Spain. On the contrary, he knew the leftist Western press, from Norman Corwin on down, would make it their personal quest to drag his name down through history as a pirate and a Nazi. To this day he is regarded as the fascist par excellence in the historical literature, with Hemingway and his saintly crew of bourgeois "freedom fighters" as the eternal Good Guys, just because the communist government of the so-called Spanish Republic was voted into power and Franco was not.
This is not a notion confined to liberals alone; the idea that democracy trumps everything is common among even so-called conservatives. Even here on FR you will hear the bleats of the democracy-worshippers who truly believe that any government is okay as long as its is an expression of the all-important will of the people. "Well, if the people of Spain voted for communism, that's what they should have gotten.," they claim. "Franco had no right to overthrow a government established by the will of the people!" Yeah? Well, my question for these folks is: what if the will of the people chooses evil? Should a soldier stand back and watch satanic madmen turn his country into a hell on Earth just because 51% of the idiots out there voted for it?
No. The will of the people is not the final arbiter of good and evil. Vox populi is not vox dei. Soldiers have the duty to defend their country from all enemies, internal or external, elected or not. An evil government in a gven country should be overthrown by the defenders of that country — the military — even if 51%, 75%, or 99% of the people want that government to be in power. It is the duty of the military to defend the nation against ALL enemies — even if the enemy is the will of the people.
Francisco Franco was a soldier of Spain and he knew his duty. There are more important things in this world than one's historical reputation. Someday he will be recognized as the hero he truly was. Someday, when the web or its sucessor technologies have smashed the global media/historical monopoly once and for all, the real truth of the Spanish Civil war will be revealed: that it was the opening battle of World War III, the so-called "cold War" against global communism.
Viva España, Viva Franco and Viva Cristo Rey.